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Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook? Try Google (wsj.com)
Facebook may be in the hot seat right now for its collection of personal data without our knowledge or explicit consent, but as The Wall Street Journal points out, "Google is a far bigger threat by many measures: the volume of information it gathers, the reach of its tracking and the time people spend on its sites and apps." From the report (alternative source): It's likely that Google has shadow profiles (data the company gathers on people without accounts) on as at least as many people as Facebook does, says Chandler Givens, CEO of TrackOff, which develops software to fight identity theft. Google allows everyone, whether they have a Google account or not, to opt out of its ad targeting, though, like Facebook, it continues to gather your data. Google Analytics is far and away the web's most dominant analytics platform. Used on the sites of about half of the biggest companies in the U.S., it has a total reach of 30 million to 50 million sites. Google Analytics tracks you whether or not you are logged in. Meanwhile, the billion-plus people who have Google accounts are tracked in even more ways. In 2016, Google changed its terms of service, allowing it to merge its massive trove of tracking and advertising data with the personally identifiable information from our Google accounts.
Google uses, among other things, our browsing and search history, apps we've installed, demographics like age and gender and, from its own analytics and other sources, where we've shopped in the real world. Google says it doesn't use information from "sensitive categories" such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health. Because it relies on cross-device tracking, it can spot logged-in users no matter which device they're on. Google fuels even more data harvesting through its dominant ad marketplaces. There are up to 4,000 data brokers in the U.S., and collectively they know everything about us we might otherwise prefer they didn't -- whether we're pregnant, divorced or trying to lose weight. Google works with some of these brokers directly but the company says it vets them to prevent targeting based on sensitive information. Google also is the biggest enabler of data harvesting, through the world's two billion active Android mobile devices.
Google uses, among other things, our browsing and search history, apps we've installed, demographics like age and gender and, from its own analytics and other sources, where we've shopped in the real world. Google says it doesn't use information from "sensitive categories" such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health. Because it relies on cross-device tracking, it can spot logged-in users no matter which device they're on. Google fuels even more data harvesting through its dominant ad marketplaces. There are up to 4,000 data brokers in the U.S., and collectively they know everything about us we might otherwise prefer they didn't -- whether we're pregnant, divorced or trying to lose weight. Google works with some of these brokers directly but the company says it vets them to prevent targeting based on sensitive information. Google also is the biggest enabler of data harvesting, through the world's two billion active Android mobile devices.
Try your cell company...
I've been kinda confused that everyone is so angry at Facebook, while MS has been given a free pass.
Google makes sense to me; they've always been known to profile you so as to effectively sell you stuff. Free service, so you had to have known what was going on ( same goes for facebook mind you ).
But MS; they force 10 down everyone's throats with telemetry and who knows what other data being collected. Of the three, MS's data collection policies are the most opaque; you can't even find out what they know about you. And that's for a product they charge people for!
Yet no one seems to care. I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that outrage at Facebook is nothing more than an extension of (D)s throwing a fit because Trump got elected.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
This is even dumber that the average political use of whataboutism...
Google: knows everything about you, will use what it knows to serve ads to you based on a target profile supplied by the advertiser.
Facebook: knows everything about you and gave your data and your friends data and your friends-friends data to anyone that could be bothered to ask, oh and also sold some ads.
So similar.
Sure, Google collects all kinds of data about you. But it doesn't give or sell that data to third parties like app makers. It uses it to target ads. The ad companies don't get lists of your friends or your activities, to use how they want.
So yes, Google does collect a lot of information about you, but it's not the same as what Facebook does.
Your ISP (Interwebs Service Provider) has even more Personally Identifiable Information (PII) than either Facebook or Google combined. More even then the CIA, NSA & FBI.
Think about it: every single bit you send over the InterWebs goes through their routers over their wires, even if you use a satellite provider.
Who better than the 21st century TelCo's to trust w/ you most intimate on-line details? AT&T, Comcast, Frontier, Verizon, et al. all have spotless, impeccable records when it comes to respecting your privacy and guarding against data breaches.
NOT!
At least Google claims to strip the low-order octet (last 4 bits) from your 32-bit IP address when recording PII. That means they may know what ISP you're using and roughly in what town/county, but no finer resolution than that in their aggregate user data. Facebook makes no such claim, as far as I know. And your ISP records & retains full IP-address details in their logs for up to 2 years (or more), even if you're using VPN or Tor or some other presumed “privacy protection” device.
That's why unless you're using local strong encryption of all your data & Interwebs traffic, you're a privacy chump. Even then, though, that protects only your data, not your meta-data of with whom you've communicated, when and how many packets, etc. Big Brother likes it that way.
So why hasn't anyone dragged the ISP's before a Congressional hearing on data privacy yet? In who's pockets are they really... uhm... in? Just askin'. ;-)
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